He reached into his bag and pulled out a book and a small wood box. He walked around to Frederik, moved his porridge out of the way, and put an open book on the table in front of him. "Can you read that?"

"Ragnar?"

He held his hand up at Dagmar, silencing her.

"I can," Frederik said low. "Just not very well."

"Right." Ragnar crouched down next to him and pulled a pair of spectacles out of the box he held. Taking his time, he placed them on Frederik, adjusting them behind the boy's ears and around his nose. "Now look again."

The boy shrugged, his gaze moving to the book in front of him. He stared. Blinked. Leaned in a bit. Blinked.

"I . . . I don't understand."

"It seems you have the opposite of what your Aunt Dagmar has. She has trouble seeing far distances. You have trouble seeing close up. That's why you struggle with reading. It probably gave you headaches when you tried to read? Your eyes felt tired?"

"Sometimes."

"Did you teach yourself not to squint?"

Frederik looked over the glasses at Dagmar. "I used to squint. My father said it made me look weak. So . . . I stopped."

Dagmar, shocked, focused on Ragnar. "How did you know?"

He shrugged. "It was a guess. And the more Keita and Gwenvael talked to the boy, the louder they became. Before Frederik arrived, they only seemed to do that with you."

"But"-Keita covered the boy's ears again, and whispered-"he still seems clumsy and awkward. You don't want to convince him that these pieces of glass will cure all his problems."

"You have a point." Ragnar reached across the table, grabbing a piece of fruit from a bowl. He tossed it to Talaith. "Lady Talaith. If you please."

Talaith shrugged and pitched the fruit at Frederik's head. Dagmar cringed, afraid it would hit him directly in the face. But he caught the fruit in his hand. Without even looking.

"Oh." Keita stepped back. "I see."

"So do I." Dagmar pushed her chair back and stood.

"Where are you going?" Gwenvael asked her.

"To write my father." She walked toward the hallway that would lead to the small office she kept inside the castle, her two dogs slipping out from under the table and following her. "This level of deception and lies must be addressed immediately."

"Aunt Dagmar-"

She stopped, faced the boy, raising a single finger. "No, Frederik. There's nothing more to discuss."

Frederik lowered his gaze. "I understand."

Gwenvael rested his chin on his raised fist, smirked at Dagmar. "What are you going to do with him, my love?"

"What do you think?" Dagmar demanded. "Keep him! I'd never send a plotting little liar like this back to the dullards of my family. Oh, no. I will keep you, boy, and I will train you, and I will use you to the fullest extent of your twisted capabilities." She clapped her hands together. "I'm so damn excited!"

She spun around and again headed to her office, but she heard Gwenvael say to the boy, "Welcome to the family, Frederik."

They stopped for a brief meal break in the woods not far from the road they were traveling. Izzy sat down next to Brannie, offering her some dried beef and bread.

"Are you still not talking to me?" Izzy asked.

"I'm hungover. But you can't just keep kidnapping me anytime you want to do something ridiculously dangerous."

"But if I ask you when you're sober, we spend hours arguing before you just finally agree. This cuts down on the arguing."

Her cousin glowered at her. "You are a plotting little cow and some days I loathe you."

Izzy put her arm around her cousin's shoulders and kissed her cheek. "But most days you love me because there's nowhere else you can get this level and diversity of combat training."

"Yes, I just need to survive long enough to enjoy the benefits."

"Don't worry. You'll be general before you know it."

"Unlike you, that has not been my lifelong goal. I do have a question, though, cousin."

"Hhhm?"

"Macsen seems to have taken a sudden and rather brutal dislike to eibhear."

"He never liked eibhear."

"But he seems to dislike him even more now." She jerked her head toward the other end of the clearing and Izzy watched the big blue idiot trying to get her dog to release the dragon's tight ass, which was currently caught between Macsen's jaws.

"Perhaps he simply finds eibhear irritating and confusing."

"Macsen finds eibhear irritating and confusing? Macsen? The dog?"

Taking one more bite of her bread, Izzy stood and walked over to pry her dog off eibhear.

Brannie watched Izzy try to call off that dog of hers. Although if Brannie were to be honest, she'd have to admit that Izzy was not trying very hard. Not as hard as she would if this was one of her soldiers.

Aidan sat down where Izzy had been sitting.

"What?" Brannie asked him.

"My, we are awfully snarly. I think I saw fang."

"What do you want, M-runach?"

"Just sitting here, being entertained by our friends."

"eibhear isn't my friend. He's kin. A blood relation."

"Which means what exactly?"

"To a Cadwaladr, it means that if I have good cause, I could beat the scales off his back and get away with it."

"Ah, yes. More confirmation I never want to meet the rest of your family. Although you're so welcoming . . ."

Brannie went back to eating her bread and meat until Uther sat on the other side of her. She had to admit, being surrounded by M-runach was unsettling. Her mother had raised her with two beliefs about the M-runach: they were invaluable in battle, but you should never turn your back on one.

"But what about granddad?" Brannie had asked, holding on to her mother's tail while the dragoness had walked through a forest near their home. "He was M-runach."

"And the worst of the lot, my girl. The worst of the lot. Especially to his offspring. We never turned our backs on your grandfather. Addolgar did once . . . he still has that scar where his head got split open."

So Brannie assumed if her own grandfather couldn't have been trusted, then obviously three strange M-runach she didn't even know could definitely not be trusted. Yet Brannie still felt the need to ask them a question.

"Perhaps it's the leftover ale still rolling around my head, but . . ." She motioned to a bickering Izzy and eibhear while the dog kept barking and trying to re-attach itself to eibhear's ass. "Has something changed between those two?"

The M-runach looked at each other and then over at the arguing Izzy and eibhear. Izzy's dog was in her arms now but still attempting to lunge at eibhear's face.

Together, the males stated, "Not at all."

After a few more hours of travel, they stopped in a town pub for a meal and to discuss the remainder of their trip.

Izzy had been sure that eibhear had made up all that centaur shit about Aidan knowing his way around the Desert Lands in order to convince her mother he and his friends were necessary. But it turned out Aidan had spent years in the Desert Lands and remembered well his way there and around.

He pulled out a map and spread it out on the table, pushing the empty bowls and plates out of the way so they could all look.

"I know of at least seventeen ways we can sneak into the Desert Lands unseen, including taking the pass through-"

"Wait," Izzy cut in. "Why do we need to sneak into the Desert Lands? Both Annwyl and Rhiannon have an alliance with the Desert Land rulers."

Aidan looked down at the map and back up at her. "I thought this was a kill assignment. Isn't this a kill assignment?" he asked eibhear.

She saw Brannie quickly turn her head away when Izzy snarled, "No. This isn't a kill assignment."

"But that's what we do," Aidan insisted. "We kill. We sneak in and kill. Are you unclear on what the M-runach do?"

"I didn't invite you people!" Izzy looked at eibhear. "Fix this. Fix this right now."

He held his hands up and said to Aidan, "We're not there to kill anyone."

"Then why are we going?"

"I'm going to see my grandmother," Izzy said.

"We just left your grandmother."

"Another grandmother!"

"Well, how many do you have?"

"That's it!" eibhear ordered them all. "That's it."

eibhear stopped a moment to glare at the people in the pub who'd started to stare at them. When everyone looked away, he focused back on the group.

"We've got two things to do when we get to the Desert Lands. See if we can find Vateria Flominia and if we do, learn whether she's causing problems. Then I'll report that back to my mother. The other task is to escort General Iseabail to the Nolwenn territories to meet with her grandmother and-"

"Did you make an appointment?" Aidan asked Izzy.

Izzy looked around. "Did who make an appointment?"

"You."

"Make an appointment with my grandmother? Why would I do that?"

"Powerful rulers wait months to meet with the Nolwenns."

"I'm her granddaughter."

Uther said around the chicken leg he was currently sucking marrow from, "Thought she kicked your mum on the street."

Izzy was nearly across the table, her hands around the big bastard's throat before another big bastard scooped her up and took her out of the pub.

"I don't know how this is going to work if you can't control your temper."

Izzy pulled herself away from his arms, which he didn't really want her to do, but he knew better than to grab her back.

"Why are they here?" she demanded, facing him. "For that matter, why are you here?"

"We both know why I'm here."

"Why? For more fucking? Will you finally get your chance to brag to Celyn when we get back? Laugh about it at the pub? Or have another reason to blame me for your gods-damn misery? To again point the finger at the whore who came between cousins?"

eibhear answered the only way he could think of at the moment, "Are you still going on about that?"

Izzy's hands curled into fists and she took an angry step forward. But then, just as suddenly, she took a quick step back, looked around, and finally-wonderfully-laughed.

"You rude bastard."

eibhear joined her, the two of them standing in some alley in some town neither knew much about, laughing.

"Sorry. I couldn't resist."

She waved the apology away. "It's a little matter."

"You're worried about meeting her, aren't you?"

"I want to do what's best for my sister. But this is about her future and if I get it wrong . . ."

"That's why I'll be with you through all this. Your sister but my niece. I'm not about to let her train under someone not worthy of the challenge. And if we can also find out whether Vateria is in the Desert Lands for my mother, that's even better. We'll accomplish more in a few weeks than most of my kin accomplish in a few thousand years."

"You know, I've seen Vateria, I know what she did to her cousin. Why Grandmum isn't just getting rid of her is beyond me."